(HealthDay News) — For patients with bladder cancer, laparoscopic radical cystectomy (LRC) is associated with good long-term outcomes, according to research published online Dec. 18 in BJU International.

Simone Albisinni, M.D., from Hopital Erasme in Brussels, and colleagues reported the long-term outcomes for LRC in a multicenter European cohort. Data were collected from nine centers that enrolled 503 patients undergoing LRC for bladder cancer.

The researchers found that minor (Clavien I to II) and major (IIIa to IVb) complications occurred in 39 and 17 percent, respectively. Overall, there were 10 postoperative deaths (2 percent). The median lymph node retrieval was 14; 5.8 percent of patients had positive surgical margins.

During a median follow-up of 50 months there were 134 (27 percent) recurrences. At five years, the actuarial recurrence-free survival (RFS), cancer-specific survival (CSS), and overall survival (OS) were 66, 75, and 62 percent, respectively; at 10 years, RFS, CSS, and OS were 62, 55, and 38 percent, respectively.

RFS, CSS, and OS varied significantly according to tumor stage, lymph node involvement, and margin status. Tumor stage and lymph node involvement were found to be significant predictors of RFS, CSS, and OS in multivariate analysis (both P < 0.001). Positive margins significantly predicted RFS (P = 0.016) and CSS (P = 0.043).

“In this European LRC multicenter study, the largest to date, long-term RFS, CSS, and OS rates after LRC appear comparable to those reported in current open RC series,” the authors write.